Over the years, we have seen a number of means used to enhance Mario’s coin scoring while ‘just walking around’ be it using a power up suit or flying around in Bowser Jr’s Clown Car, or even the various rafts seen in Wiggler’s Poison swamp or Dorrie’s Beach Front. This wave sees the arrival of 71404 Goomba’s shoe, an oversized boot, with a wind up key, which Mario (or Luigi or Peach) can ride in. How does it contribute to the game?

The set is priced at $17.99 AUD /9.99USD(affiliate link) and has 76 pieces. It officially goes on sale on August 1, 2022.

The elements

The model is predominantly green and yellow, and includes a number of curved plates, as well as another Warp Pipe.

Enemies

This set comes with a single Goomba. The face tile has been reused from the Goomba Pirate captain in last year’s ‘Bowser’s Airship’. The Goomba is worth ( as they all are) one coin, for a single scan. It can be rescanned in game.

Landscape

There is a single 4×4 yellow biome plate, with several bricks and an offset plate in one corner, allowing for the Goomba to sit on a pedestal.

Goomba’s Shoe

The shoe is constructed from (amongst other things) a green warp pipe, and some of the 1x2x1/3 curved slope elements, as well as the 2×2 green curved slop, that goes on a corner. Inside the shoe is a scannable tile. Underneath the shoe is a protruding white curved slope that is acts to buffer the show being put down, and start on the next step.

Game play:

When walking along in a normal fashion, Mario picks up a coin for every 10 steps or so. On putting on the shoe, the music Mario plays changes, and the frequency with which points are score while travelling along increases. If Mario is thown into the air, or spun into a somersault, he gains several coins as a bonus – but is just as likely to fall out and enter a no coin state for a period of time. While travelling in the shoe, he cannot scan any enemies, but at the same time, he will not be stunned or enter a no coin state for landing on a hostile biome – such as lava or soda swamp, or landing on enemies such as Sparx or Freezie (as examples). The music changes, and reverts to the normal tune after around 10 seconds.

It is up to the people playing to decide what a fair range for a jump in the shoe might be, and indeed what sort of terrain it can traverse without damage. While it offers a degree of invulnerability, it is impossible to score bonus coins for defeating enemies while your character rides inside.

This is an inexpensive set, however I think it adds more to the appearance of Mario (I have to admit, he looks awesome riding in the shoe, rather than improving the quality of the game play significantly. It’s kind of fun, but not really a game-changer. As such, I give it 3 out of 5 Arbitrary Praise units.

What do you think of Goomba’s Shoe? Why not leave your comments below and until next time,

Play Well!

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This set was provided by the LEGO Goup’s AFOL Engagement team for review purposes. All opinions however, are my own.